


Side-Stage Sideshow Acts

by crewdlydrawn



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), The Dark Knight Rises
Genre: Alternate Universe, Camaraderie, Circus, Gen, I mean it I wrote gen fic, Juggling, One Shot, Orphan John, Teasing, no mention of Batman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22518973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crewdlydrawn/pseuds/crewdlydrawn
Summary: John Blake grew up in an orphanage, but took his talent for gymnastics to the stage by working with the city's circus.  When two new crew members arrive in town, his routines and solitary nature may face a change.
Kudos: 11





	Side-Stage Sideshow Acts

**Author's Note:**

> Blake's stage personality and this fic in general were inspired by the author's experience at a Cirque du Soleil show.

Applause and laughter filled the air, enough to distract the average person, but he was used to it. In fact, it was his life’s blood, the fuel on which his adrenaline fed. Even right then, as he more slowly stalked his way through the aisles of the crowd, prosthetic lizard tail swinging behind him as directed by his hips and a well-placed pull string slipped between his fingers, he felt electrified by the night’s beginning. As his fellow players and a league of stagehands got the finishing touches of the night into place, Blake kept the audience’s eyes on him—stealing a handful of popcorn here, a finger pinch of cotton candy there, climbing up the rigging and scaffolding with his absconded treats and attempting to find a willing and open mouth to aim for. 

There were resounding ‘awww’s when he missed, and delighted cheers when his aim proved true. Even those from whom he’d stolen found themselves only ever more pleased by the slight. Of course, they would receive a voucher from a stagehand before the houselights lowered, able to replace their snack if they wished, but Blake knew that few ever took the opportunity, counting it part of their entertainment. Once, he’d even taken the entire paper bucket with him to his perch on the light rigging pole, dumping it into the closer seats and earning only pleased encouragement. Depending on individual reactions, he’d climbed through the tightly-packed rows, leaned into personal space, played hand games with small children, mussed hair, and directed selfie opportunities with many a lap-held cell phone. 

This part of the show was wholly his own. No others to rely on, no others to disappoint; just him, the audience, and a bit of climbing and foolery. He owned the space and the time, and he preferred to keep it that way.

It was during one such climb-and-dump of popcorn that he discovered a newer member of their crew—one startled more than acting’s sake by the rain of puffs over his shoulders. His face was unfamiliar, but as a pair of puffs found their way into his beard, sticking in place despite gravity’s designs, Blake found himself grinning along with the laughing and applauding crowd. Playing along, the man plucked the bits out of his facial hair, flicking them away, and managing to direct them perfectly into the nearby trash can, earning a few pleased sounds from those close by. 

Blake gave a dramatically balanced bow from his place on the rigging pole—toes of his left foot hooked securely behind one of the climbing hooks as he leaned outward over the audience—and the man below twirled his hand and bowed his head just as the house lights went out. Cheers faded to a palpable hush, and Blake was down the pole and out of audience spaces before the first soft clank of a lit spotlight broke the silence. 

Backstage was behind two thick blackout curtains and down a skinny corridor. Low, red emergency lights gave what would likely be an ominous glow to the unfamiliar, but he knew the path, fingertips only just grazing the nylon material that made up the interior tent wall. 

Only the cast and crew were allowed that far back, and crew tended to be too busy during the active portions of the show to bother him in between his positions. Murmurs of radio chatter were the only sounds in the dressing room that doubled as a snack station. There was 'food' food around any given day after a show, but small pick-and-go items were much more popular among the cast. It certainly helped when even the slightest bite that went awry could require touch-up on hours of makeup—setting powder only goes so far. A pair of grapes had just been cut against his closed-mouth teeth when Blake realized he wasn't alone, despite no one else having entered the space since he had.

Mid chew, he turned, cream paint covered brow rising high. "Not even Yuri is that quiet," he accused the shadow that was blending in with the rack of yet-unused costumes. While he’d played along with the stage hand’s ninja-like antics in the past, Yuri had since moved on from sneaking around behind others. At first, nothing changed in response, no movement, no sound. Slowly then, the rack’s contents divided, sliding silently along the metal bar that supported them. Metal on metal, Blake nearly rolled his eyes at the extra drama put into keeping the motion from making noise. “You planning on comin’ out?” he aimed, already starting to turn away in exaggerated disinterest, popping another pair of grapes.

Having kept the break in the costume hangers in his peripheral, Blake was confused and startled to have movement come from nearly ten feet to the side, instead. A man several inches shorter than himself stepped lightly, though swiftly, out from behind a low barrel, straightening up and regarding Blake with a tilted gaze. It was curious, measuring, and his sharp eyes were a calculating sort. The entire ensemble of impressions nearly gave Blake a shiver.

“Hey,” he pointed, remnants of grapes still between his teeth as he carefully enunciated around them, “it’s you.” The same new crew member who’d fallen accidental victim to Blake’s popcorn routine. When the man only popped his brows, pointing a finger towards his own chest, Blake nodded. “Yeah, you. With the popcorn, and the good aim.” A grin, then, flashy and short, cut off by a shrug as the man crossed the floor to start picking at the fruit table’s offerings. “You got a name?”

“Do _you_?” a deep voice rumbled from behind Blake’s right shoulder, sending the hairs on the back of his neck skyward, and nearly making him jump if he weren’t practiced at controlling himself. 

Turning, he looked over, and then up, and then up again, and then up some more, until at last his eyes met another pair, far above his own. _Damn_. 

“Several,” Blake offered, his tone even, stubbornly unaffected by the way in which the two men were bracketing him in. Stubbornness had to go to work hard, as the second man, tall enough to tower imposingly over Blake’s head and shoulders, was also broad as a truck. A strongman, most likely. He’d assumed the new faces were merely crew, and maybe they were, but damn if this mountain couldn’t get work on the stage floor somehow.

Despite all of his careful control, Blake couldn’t stop a flinch when the large man’s hand suddenly flew up from its place at his side, not towards Blake, but into the air out from his shoulder. Fingers closed and carefully grasped, before lightly tossing a grape Blake hadn’t seen fly from behind him into his mouth. All the while, from stock-still to catch to snack, the man’s eyes never left Blake’s. The motion brought attention to the man’s face, where Blake noted finally that faint scars crisscrossed their way over his mouth, jaw, and neck. From the looks of them, they were old enough to not warrant asking about.

“Just… call me ‘Blake’,” he finally added, pursing his lips tightly and grabbing a bottle of water off of the food table. His eyes flicked to the side as he drank, watching several grapes dance in precise, delicate arcs over the smaller, bearded man’s fingers before making their way to his mouth. “Bit of a juggler, yourself, aren’t you,” he deadpanned.

“I am Bane,” introduced the towering man, currently fixing himself a full plate of fruit, “and yes, he is.”

Grapes gone, sharp eyes met Blake’s for a brief, intent moment, before nearly seeming to lose interest as he turned away, producing a set of small, soft balls from a pocket—at least Blake assumed they’d come from a pocket, as he couldn’t quite tell in what moment they’d appeared—and began sending them in short, measured arcs between his hands and the air. 

“Does he always do that?” Blake directed at the strongman, though his eyes were watching the balls as they seemed hardly to touch the smaller man’s hands at all between passages through the air. 

“Practice without speaking?” Bane confirmed, eyes flicking to his partner. “Yes.” 

“Yeah, I mean I get THAT,” Blake gestured his head to the side, “but I mean doing it while someone’s trying to—hey!” Halfway brought to his mouth, and thankfully unopened, Blake’s water bottle left his hand’s grasp and quickly joined the cycle flitting through juggling fingers. “DUDE.”

Broad shoulders shaking in a silent chuckle, Bane did nothing to help as his friend only winked at Blake and took a step back. He showed no sign of aiming the bottle back his way. In a movement that reminisced of schoolyard botherings, Blake snatched his hand forward to grab the bottle, missing, and only earning more distance as the guy backed up again. 

Annoyed, unwilling to engage, Blake simply turned and plucked another bottle from the table, preferring to let him have the first if he wasn’t going to give it back. When _that_ bottle also flew from his hold, Blake set his jaw, both bottles and balls visible in his peripheral as he reached for a third and they danced in the air. Before he chose the next, though, he had an idea.

Motion steady, falsely nonchalant, Blake picked up a bottle, pulling it away from the table as he waited, his attentions cast to the side as, just as he’d suspected, a dark-booted foot came swiftly sweeping up from the floor to kick its toes at the bottle. Instead, Blake let the bottle drop, grabbing the foot in a tight grip and stopping its momentum short. 

“Ha!” he smirked, looking up only to see that his opponent hadn’t paused in the slightest. Now balanced on one foot, all three balls and two water bottles were still following unaffected paths, and Blake was greeted with a self-satisfied expression to rival his own. Perhaps even surpassed.

Keeping hold of the foot, now by its ankle, Blake let out a breath. “Look, man, I’ve got to get out there once they hit intermission, so if you’re done fucking around…”

In smooth concert with the rest, one of the water bottles left the juggling cycle and instead arced its way towards Blake. Content with the momentary win, he unceremoniously released the foot, grabbing the bottle with both hands and quickly taking a few swallows to ensure success. 

The other bottle looped over Blake’s head, caught with a soft plastic crunch by Bane, who rumbled an appreciative response from behind him. Blake opened his mouth to protest them ganging up on him, but the red-shaded light they’d been basking in sharply filtered itself a much harsher white, and it was officially intermission. He had a job to do.

“We’ll have to finish this later,” he spoke between short, safe gulps of water, before casting the bottle aside. “Bane,” he nodded to the strongman, “…and whoever you are,” he added with a lift of his chin to indicate the juggler. The man only held his gaze, a light amusement in his eyes, and Blake rolled his own in return as he quickly shucked his costume down to his under-leotard. Any semblance of shame before strangers, in such a form-fitting and nothing left to the imagination piece of clothing, had long since been bred out of him through work. 

Each leg of the show saw a different context in which Blake was to work, and the intermission was another chance for him to mess around in the audience. His character would return in the second act, as part of the stage show, and he needed to look the part in advance—at least partially. As he plucked down his next set of robes and accessories, he could hear a hushed tone behind him, words he couldn’t fully make out, but which he was very certain couldn’t be English. It wasn’t unfamiliar, overhearing players and crew speaking in their native tongues around the tents, but in this particular moment, it felt an awful lot like telling secrets, after the teasing they’d just doled out. 

Costume set, Blake checked his makeup in one of the many mirrors fixed into the racks, adding a few more lines from a set of grease paint he kept in his inner pockets for emergencies and scene shifts. There was a nebulous sort of story that followed the two acts of the show, its characters developing through circumstances, but it wasn’t truly scripted in a concrete way. Their choreographer merely conveyed emotional shifts during practice sessions, and the props and makeup directors followed suit. 

This time, he was to prowl through the audience as not mere mischief, but to silently make a mocking case against the protagonist’s new suitor, a character that had been introduced at the close of the first act. It was a little bit of miming, a lot of body language, expressions and emotions without words—his favorite sort. At least he could focus on that, as he slipped between the tent walls, leaving the new crew members behind and knowing he wouldn’t need to see them until after the end of the show.

**_______________________________  
  
**

In fact, show’s end rolled through, players took their bows, ushers showed the audience out, and Blake was back in the costume room removing his makeup with no sign of the two new crew members. 

Loud, dramatic sigh accompanying the whoosh of air out of the seat’s vinyl cushion, one of Blake’s cast-mates, Nidhi, plopped down at the next mirror to work on her own face. “Last weekend show,” she breathed, her lips unmoved in the process as she plumped them to strip their paint, “won’t be this full for another few days.”

While they did shows Wednesday through Sunday, the last two days at the end of the week were consistently, predictably, their busiest. Of course, they were paid equally for all days, and as long as they drew enough ticket sales they would stay that way, but too many empty seats inevitably became a distraction. Even more so for Blake, whose primary focus _was_ the audience. Nidhi aimed her singing voice at the seats as much as he aimed his antics, but her soaring notes would reach the rafters with or without an attending crowd.

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, working makeup remover over his forehead. “More room to crawl, I guess…” He offered a half smile through the mirror reflection, but before she could keep the exchange going, two younger men came up behind them with light, bouncing steps.

A long-gloved hand reached past Blake’s ear to grab up another set of materials. “You guys get a load’a the new-crews?” Lion was one of the trapeze artists. His real name was ‘Lyle’, but according to him, no one had called him that since he was in diapers. Blake had his doubts about that, but a stage name was a stage name, and it fit the guy well enough. His cloud of sandy brown hair licked out in every direction, even with the aid of taming products, which was as much of a mane as he supposed any human could really get.

Shrugging one shoulder, the other’s arm and hand busy working a thicker spot on his neck, Blake only glanced back through the mirror. “Got a look or two,” he offered, choosing _not_ to admit how he’d been teased and poked at between curtains. 

“You know, no one actually knows where they came from,” offered Shin, having elected not to bother with his makeup or costume yet. Instead, he had produced an apple from some unknown location, and had perched himself atop a wheelie cabinet, crisscross, to eat it as he spoke. “It’s all suspicious-like.”

Done his face down to the last layer before rubbing in a moisturizer, Blake bobbed his head. “I mean, yeah, they’re kind of mysterious and all—comes with the territory, around here, I guess.”

Lion waved a hand to dismiss him, before catching his own reflection, frowning briefly, and continuing to work on his makeup. “More than that,” he muttered through barely moving lips, “seem like they’re runnin’ from somethin’, kinda. Probably. Who knows what—”

“Well, aren’t we all, anyway?” The three young men’s eyes darted quickly to the second mirror stand as Nidhi cut them off with a dramatic sigh. She didn’t bother meeting any of their gazes in the reflection, focusing calmly on her own work. Having already finished with her face and neck, she had moved on to working her hair out of the tiny, intricate loops and braids she had threaded through with wire and lights for the finale. “Perhaps not literally,” she continued, pins between her teeth doing nothing to dampen her perfect diction, “and it is such a tired line, ‘run away to the circus’,” Blake felt his eyes threaten to roll just at its mention, “but I’d say we all have something lagging behind us as we go.”

The small room was quiet for the space of several heartbeats, broken only then by a crisp, loud crack of Shin’s apple as he bit into it. 

“Uh… sorry,” he spoke around the bite that easily spanned a third of the whole fruit. 

Sincerity broken, shared laughter took the space of introspection as they each took to finishing their own tasks for the evening. They’d go their separate ways until they gathered for the next performance, despite all living in quarters close by their arena. Crawling quietly into his cot, placed in a room with four others and equally silent, Blake wondered that night if Nidhi didn’t perhaps have a point.

**_______________________________  
  
**

That week passed as normally as any did under the tent tops, with cast and crew running themselves ragged through Sunday night. Cleanup at the close of a show week was everyone’s responsibility, not just the typical custodial crew. It was a ritual, of sorts. Representational of an ending, of ownership over their work, everyone, down to singers and high-risers, would be out in force, costumes typically not yet completely picked clean, with a broom or bag in hand to clear the space for the coming days of rest.

In a way, Blake enjoyed it. Sure, it was dirty, often smelly, and most certainly sticky from spilled drinks—typically adults who didn’t care where their leftovers got to, rather than irresponsible children—but it gave a quieter view of the crowd, a change in perspective. There, everyone else joined him through the seats, into the aisles, and radiating outward from the stage. They began in the back, along the outskirts just in from the curtain-gate doorways, and worked their ways in a zigzag pattern through seat row blocks until all of them reached the rounded edge of the center stage. 

Most of the talkative crew ended up on one side, chatting their way through the work. Lion and Shin, Blake noted, were side by side, their voices too low to hear over the distance, despite their exchanges seeming animated enough. Following their line of sight, Blake trailed his gaze across the sea of seats, passing briefly before coming to rest on the faces of their two newest crew members. Bane and—he realized, with a sudden half-frown in thought, that he’d never actually caught the second man’s name. While he may not have been the most social person outside of the family that was his troupe, he did prefer to make an effort to know everyone involved with the shows, at least on a causal level. It helped to know who he was supposed to work with, or who he needed to avoid. 

Risking a more public form of humiliation via a second round of teasing, Blake finished his row, dumping the butler full of debris and dirt into a rolling trash can, before making his way over towards the pair. Sharp eyes clearly caught his approach before he got close, though the shorter man declined to engage him right away, merely turning to hop over the lower end of his mop handle, swinging it slowly the other direction. Bane, however, turned at the shift in his companion, meeting Blake’s arrival with an extended hand.

“Blake, correct?” he asked in greeting, giving Blake’s hand a firm, rough-skinned squeeze. Had he just been a performing strongman through his life, Blake would have expected the pressure and strength, but the worn nature of the callouses along his fingers and palm pointed at more physical labor. 

“Yeh, that’s right.” Not wishing to shirk his obligation for conversation, Blake set to work on sweeping and clearing the row directly in front of the pair. “Bane, you said?” The larger man nodded. “And he is…”

A chuckle formed in Bane’s throat before Blake’s incomplete, leading question could even get that far. “When he’s ready, he’ll tell you.” 

“Right…” Blake drew out, feeling torn somewhere between intrigue and impatience at the other’s antics. A sudden thought occurred, and he lowered his voice. “ _Does_ he speak?”

It might just have been the movement of the mop, but Blake could have sworn the bearded man’s shoulders shook, silently, as if in laughter.

“If he didn’t,” Bane offered, bending with a grunt to pull a popcorn tub out from its position wedged beneath one of the fold-up seats, “he certainly can hear, which reflects on your choice of question.” 

Without turning around, Bane’s partner tossed three soda cups over his shoulder, their arcs perfectly aligned through the air so as to land in the empty popcorn tub in Bane’s grasp. Perfectly, that is, along with a delicate splash of liquid that hit Blake square in the cheek. Startled, blinking, Blake raised his hand to wipe the offending drop away, but Bane’s thumb was faster. Rough skin dragged gently across his painted cheek, pressured just enough to swipe the drop and none of the makeup. Blake quite suddenly found himself grateful for a layer of greasepaint between his warming cheeks and the air between them. 

Clearing his throat pointedly, he nodded gratitude to Bane. “Yeah, fair, I guess, huh. Sorry,” he aimed with a raise of his chin towards the other man, who still hadn’t turned back. _He splashes me with old soda, and I still end up apologizing to him,_ Blake shook his head, choosing to focus on cleaning for the next few minutes, though staying by the pair.

A quick glance back across the audience floor informed him that Lion and Shin were still watching that direction, and their attention now included Blake. Putting their scrutiny out of his mind, he finished his row, stepping out of the end of the floor space with a loud, peeling sound as his boots stuck to a popcorn, soda, and melted cotton candy stain beneath the last seat. Grimace stealing his expression, he leaned against the back of the last seat, popping his shoe up to check the damage he’d end up leaving to all of his following steps if he didn’t get it cleaned up. Already, a soggy mass stuck along the tread lines, hanging down from the smoother surfaces like icy stalactites. 

“Great,” he muttered beneath his breath, reaching with a discarded napkin to pluck the worst of the gook off of his shoe. The space his hand had occupied was taken over in a blur of braided mop-ropes as their silent coworker gave Blake’s boot a swift swiping scrub. “Uh… thanks, I guess.” His response was half-covered by the clatter of his broom to the floor as he was caught off guard and off balance, his hands shooting to the sides to grip the tops of neighboring chairs so he didn’t end up getting the rest of him stuck to the offending spot. 

A low chuckle issued above him, and Blake narrowed his eyes even as a steady hand was offered to help him back up. When he hesitated at taking it, the quiet man tilted his head and quirked his mouth, beckoning Blake to trust him. Blake, as of yet, had little reason to do so, and yet found himself grasping the other’s wrist as his own was gripped in turn, and using the pull and momentum to right himself more fully onto both feet, into the aisle. Unfortunately for him, the entire ordeal had caused enough of a stir that their section of the floor had most of the room’s attention—as Blake finally stood erect, a smattering of sarcastic applause clipped through the echoing room, before eyes were once again off of him and attentions elsewhere. 

Silent for a moment, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of his tunic with a pointed look in the man’s direction, Blake at last let out a breath in a purposefully dramatic rush. “Thank you,” he nodded.

“Barsad,” came a thick-voiced reply, and when Blake’s brow arched, he tipped his head forward and repeated himself. “My name,” he added to clarify. 

“Oh. Nice to meet you, then.” Half his words ended up aimed at Barsad’s back as he’d already turned away, and when Blake glanced back, he could see a smirk on Bane’s face before he, too, left Blake standing there alone. 

**_______________________________  
  
**

In a span of less than two weeks, the weather had gone from refreshingly cool to bitterly chilled. Winter was a good ways off, still, and yet it seemed like the entire city had begun to slow down, in anticipation of the long, dark season. Folks were silent on the streets, passing one another in small puffs of clouded breath that carried no words unless they braved a hand-held phone call. It probably wouldn’t snow—at least, not sincerely—for another month, but the air had that crisp yet damp taste to it that signaled it was coming soon.

Blake hopped from one foot to the other at the bus stop, keeping his toes in better circulation inside his thinning tennis shoes. His best clothes were summer clothes, and even then, he only had so many to choose from. Most of his wages went to room and board at the circus, and they weren’t so great to begin with. His gloves were fingerless, less for aesthetic and more for the fact that he couldn’t quite stand having their material rub over his fingertips. Having his fingers trapped, unable to touch his environment around him, made him feel anxious and dulled at the same time. So he breathed hot puffs of air onto bare skin, instead, flexing them in and out of fists in front of his face to encourage their warmth.

His bus was late, but then, the south end of the city couldn’t be relied on too heavily for just about anything, when it came to infrastructure. He could have skipped the whole thing, blamed the weather or rehearsals, and he had done so enough times in the past, but he had made a promise. Every other Monday, with the player cast tired and resting from a week’s worth of shows, given the majority of a day without practices or places to manage, Blake saved up enough pocket change to get a bus to center-city. There, tucked away in the hustle and bustle where no one bothered to look up, was the orphanage in which he’d grown up. 

There wasn’t a lot he could do to give back, he couldn’t donate, he couldn’t even offer a lot of time volunteering with the kids to help them socially, with his schedule. So what he offered, what the head priest there agreed to, was a bimonthly physical class. It wasn’t truly yoga, or meditation, or gymnastics, but it was something that borrowed from everything that calmed him, focused him, and helped him put the anger of his youth to good use with movement. Not all of the kids who tried it stuck with it, but for many of them, it was as important a part of their monthly routines as mass and school lessons. And for Blake, it was something he did on his own, just him, something that helped give the rest of his life a grounded purpose, despite how much he loved being on stage and in that spotlight.

Fifteen minutes after its scheduled arrival time, Blake’s bus finally squeaked and hissed its way up to the curb in front of the stop. Biting back a complaint, he took the steps two at a time, fishing the coins out of his pocket—one pocket for the trip up, the other for the trip back—and plunking them into the counter. Less than half the seats were full, mid-morning on a weekday, and he slid himself onto the molded plastic just after the midway bars. With plenty of seats available, he didn’t feel guilty plopping his bag down onto the other half of his divided bench, effectively giving himself a bit more personal space for the ride. 

Having planned on staring out the window and letting his mind wander, Blake was startled when a voice spoke up a few inches behind his ear.

“Leaving so soon?” the lilting roll piped in a tone only partly hushed to stay for his receipt alone, but loud enough to be heard as the bus engine accelerated. “Nothing to do with our arrival, I’m sure…”

Barsad. The damn juggler. Turning sharply on the smooth seat, Blake bent his leg up, his back to the corrugated metal wall so he’d have no more surprises. “Are you fucking following me?”

“That depends,” the man’s mouth hardly seemed to move enough to warrant even the smaller words coming out, “where are you going?” Barsad’s eyes hadn’t focused on Blake’s, not even aimed at his face. Instead, he seemed to be taking in the bus itself, flicking his gaze out the windows here, there, before watching the few other passengers. Blake realized he had to have been behind him at the bus stop, must have been behind him as he’d walked there from the tents, and he hadn’t even noticed him.

“Bullshit,” he spat out, watching the other’s face even if he wouldn’t. The curse got his attention, at least. “You just happen to be on this bus, right? Same time I am? A mile’s walk out from the tents? Bullshit; you’re fucking following me. Why?”

In the daylight, away from shadowy tent spaces and harsh white stage lights, Barsad’s eyes shone a bright, icy blue, cutting all the way through as they finally flicked to Blake and then away once more. “This city is a beautiful thing, is it not?”

For a second, Blake merely stared at him. He wasn’t sure which was more aggravating, not getting any responses from the guy or getting completely unrelated replies. “Why. Are. You. Following me?” he repeated, forcing a solid staccato enunciation to emphasize. Never had he felt distinctly, personally unsafe in the city, despite all its problems, but his hackles were raised. 

“So varied,” Barsad continued, as if Blake hadn’t said a damn word, “all of its order, its straight lines, and yet dirty, rushed, full of people who care very much, yet very little.”

“Dude. I’m serious.” Blake squared off with him even further, gripping the back of the seat as the bus pulled into its first stop along the way uptown. “It’s great you like the city, but c’mon.”

A small humming sound joined the hiss of the bus’s hydraulics, and Barsad sat back, no longer leaned into Blake’s space. “You never leave, and then you leave,” he began, continuing before Blake could call him on the cryptic start. “Others go outside, walk, breathe… but not you. And suddenly, a packed bag, a serious face, and onto a bus.”

The bus lurched back into traffic, digging the edge of the seat into Blake’s armpit as he’d lain his arm over top of its back, but Barsad still sat and adjusted with it, his back not touching his own seat, arms rested lightly over his thighs. Right hand resting on his bag self-consciously, Blake weighed the options of sharing his plans and breaking his privacy or withholding the information and risking it being invaded anyway when Barsad inevitably continued to follow him right into the orphanage. He settled for the former. “There’s a boys’ home I spend time with a couple times a month,” he admitted. “Show ‘em some moves, work with ‘em a bit.”

Those eyes found Blake’s more steadily this time, and seemed to study him for a few moments. A twitch in his features shifted his beard, brought his shoulders back, and then he was sitting back in his seat, arms lightly crossed, legs splayed in a much more relaxed position. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t probed further or asked for clarity, and yet Blake had a sense he somehow knew exactly why Blake was spending his time at an orphanage inside the city. Not offering anything else, Blake waited for the comments to come, for the tease, for the needling questions, for anything at all, but nothing came. Gradually, through a handful of red light waitings, Blake relaxed his position, allowing his left leg to rest down off of the seat again, and his arm and back to turn away from the corner he’d wedged them into. 

Brakes squealed, and the bus slowed into its second stop—there were three more before Blake would reach the block near the orphanage—and he opened his mouth to ask how long Barsad planned to join him, but didn’t end up needing to speak. Without a word, even before they’d come to a complete stop, Barsad stood, perfectly balanced through the brakes’ kickback, turned, and directed himself smoothly out of the rear exit of the bus as if he hadn’t known any of the passengers, as if it was his stop all along. Twisting towards the window, mouth still agape, Blake lost sight of him quickly on the busy street, but as far as he could see, the guy never even looked back. 

**_______________________________  
  
**

“You need to stop encouraging him.” 

The last of the group was barely over the threshold when Blake caught the voice from behind him. Most of the rooms in the old building had more than one set of doors, connecting to each other in a flowing maze. The kids tended to move in and out through the hallway, but one of the teachers had apparently come in from the next room while Blake saw his class out.

Closing the door most of the way, Blake turned to find Mr. Gilbert watching him. “Encouraging who?”

Gilbert crossed the floor to start readjusting the desks Blake and the kids had pushed out of the way. “Khalil,” he answered over the thrum of friction between desk legs and wood flooring, “I heard him. Says he wants to be ‘just like you’.”

Tugging a long shirt back over his tank, Blake had to pause halfway into the material, his head not yet through the neck hem. Gilbert’s tone had been even enough, conversational, as if he might as well have been talking about the weather or a sports score, but he hadn’t. “Okay…” Blake drew the word out, hoping on the one hand that Gilbert would just give up on the discussion, and wouldn’t actually say something more overtly offensive.

He’d been there when Blake was at the center, though not until he was nearly ready to age out. There weren’t that many years between them, and the older Blake got, the less those years seemed to matter to him. To be fair, they hadn’t mattered all that much _then_ , either, as Blake had hardly shown him the same respect he’d shown Father Reilly—Gilbert hadn’t earned it, and no interactions they’d had since gave Blake the impression that that was going to change.

“You know he’s got talent for gymnastics,” Blake offered, plucking a couple of collapsible staffs off of the floor and working on breaking them down so they’d fit in his bag for the bus. “If he works on it, he could go somewhere with it.”

The click of Gilbert’s tongue was loud in the empty room, and the scrunch of desks had stopped despite the job remaining unfinished for half of the room. “Talent?” Gilbert walked over to Blake, then, left hip against the teacher’s desk, arms crossed in front of him as if it made him more of an authority. “John, he can bend left and right and backwards all he wants, but he needs something _solid_ if he’s going to make anything of himself.”

_Breathe_ , Blake reminded himself. “Get the right coach, the right in, and he’s got a future with it.”

It was a more obnoxious scoff, this time. “And what kind of future is that, _John_?” Blake’s name was sneered, a slight against his choice to use only his last name. Even the kids who’d known him when they were little followed that request. “I mean,” a short laugh, and a gesture with his chin towards Blake, “look at you.”

Blake spread his hands, setting down the bag and its zippered pockets, squaring off with the insult. “Go ahead,” he said, “look at me, then. Because this is what I do, and I work.” Jaw grinding, fingers starting to twitch, he let out a breath as Gilbert laughed sharply. “What.”

“And how much does that work make for you? Tossing a few balls around, getting laughed at day in and day out, having no rent,” Gilbert began enunciating each item on his list with a smack of the back of one hand against its opposing palm, “not enough budget for transportation uptown but twice a month, or clearly enough to even take proper care of yourself, and you want to lead one of _these kids_ , kids just like you, just as worthless right now as you were and are, into something like the circus?”

Red was all he saw by the end of Gilbert’s rant, and before he could feel the pull of muscle and sinew, his hand had already cracked against the man’s skull, his knuckles blazing in pain at the impact, and Gilbert stumbling backwards with blood running a rivulet from his nostril past his open mouth. He looked positively shocked for about three seconds, and then he looked what Blake could only interpret as a mix of angry and satisfied. Blake was the one with a swollen hand and bloodied knuckles, and yet he felt used, tricked. He’d been goaded, and even knowing that, he couldn’t possibly explain himself to anyone else. With Gilbert not yet straightened to stand, Blake grabbed up his bag, pausing only when his turn towards the door was greeted by several young faces peering in. Some of the very boys he’d dismissed earlier had been watching, though Blake couldn’t tell how _long_. In lieu of finding out, he rushed out an ‘I’m sorry’, pushing past them and taking the stairs down to the street two at a time until cold, crisp air bit into his lungs.

He’d hear it from Father Reilly—of course he would. The priest had trusted him to be a role model, to come back and help with the kids who had trouble regulating their emotions, and here he was punching a teacher right in front of them. Scrubbing at his face, backpack slung over his shoulders, he felt the sting of tears welling up in his eyes but willed them not to fall. This was a problem he couldn’t deal with right then, not while he still felt the white-hot anger in his chest, his skin, his jaw. Flexing his fingers, he winced past the pain in his right knuckles.

No bus, this time. Blake didn’t even pause at the stops, the benches, the small lines of people waiting for their transportation up or down or across the city. Most were bundled up better than he was, had more solid layers, but he needed the cutting wind, the sting against his cheeks, and the balm it was inside his lungs. It was a long walk back, and the streetlights had given in to nighttime before he’d made it back to the lower districts. With a quick set of tugs, he cinched his backpack tighter against his shoulders, making it a more difficult target, should he get messed with.

At least no one was around when he reached the tents, and rather than making his way back to his bunk, he snuck into the performance space, where he knew that, on a Monday, a rest day, there wouldn’t be anyone working setup or practice just yet. In the glow of safety lights, not so different from his work during a show, Blake dropped his pack at the base of a lighting rig and made swift work of scaling the scaffolding behind it, into the rafters above the stage. Technically, he shouldn’t have been up there without a harness, let alone without a spotter or anyone knowing where he was, but he needed to be away from everything for a little while, needed to be high up, inaccessible.

Faint red light from the safety bulbs feigned an attempt to reach up to where Blake sat himself, but it failed to do more than silhouette all of the rigging beneath him. Feet stretched out across the corner of two thin meeting girders, he leaned his head back against the cold metal of the support pole. While the motion was gentle at first, he closed his eyes tightly and gave it a few short, sharp smacks for good measure, letting the pain wash over his head, down his neck, and focusing his breathing on that, instead of everything else. For a few moments, it took the focus away from his knuckles, but not for long.

“Do you _want_ to fall?” came a voice from the shadows to his left, causing Blake to snap to attention, having to grip the wiring to his right to keep from flailing the wrong way and losing his balance. 

Even squinting did nothing at first, until a shaded movement caught his eyes, and a silhouetted shape swung down from a level above him, alighting on the leftward girder that held half of Blake’s weight. The impact hardly registered through the metal beneath him, more like a cat had landed than a man. That was enough to raise his suspicion along with his surprise and annoyance.

“…Is that _you_?” he accused, drawing himself up further against the support pole, though remaining seated. It was safer, that way. “Jesus, were you just like waiting for me to get back so you could watch me again, _Bastard_?” A cheap shot, maybe, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to care, nor to be creative.

Only a small puff of a breath returned at first, and Barsad smoothly stepped forward along the girder, his hands in his pockets, not touching any lead lines, nor wobbling or adjusting his stance in any way. He might as well have been walking along a sidewalk, or down one of the audience’s aisles, far below them. Show-off. “Ah, yes,” he feigned surprise, finally close enough that Blake could almost make out his features, “one I’ve never heard before…”

“Yeah, I can bet you’ve been called a bastard plenty of times,” Blake shot back, letting go of the wire rigging and resting his head much more gently back against the pole behind him. “Especially if you do this to everyone.”

“I do not.”

_That_ had Blake’s attention more than anything else, and he dropped his legs off of the girders, allowing them to hang and swing beneath where he sat. There was just enough of a lip around the support pole to allow him leverage to stay put. “Alright, motherfucker,” he started, hands clenching before he remembered, with a wave of pain, that that wouldn’t be a good idea right then, “what is it, huh? What is it about me that’s so impossible to leave alone?”

“Oh, it’s far from impossible,” was all he got before Barsad took a step to the left. A step that didn’t exist. 

Blake’s torso shot forward, barely keeping his own balance as the man’s silhouette disappeared from sight. Heart pounding, he listened for an impact that never came, only then hearing the tension-whip of a harness line recoiling. He must have grabbed a piece of rigging without Blake noticing, and fairly bungeed himself to the stage floor. The creak and clunk of an access door below him confirmed the theory, and Blake let himself fume over the nerve of the guy for a few minutes before working his way down to his backpack in a much more sane manner.

**_______________________________  
  
**

Wednesday morning, Blake was directed into the managing office, and told he had a phone call. No one seemed to know what exactly was needed from him, but he was handed the phone with a cringe and a ‘good luck’ manner of expression. Being a show-day, everyone was equally busy either setting up or rehearsing, and being in the office was definitely not an item on his to-do list. His tying up the phone line, even the private line, was clearly not on anyone _else’s_ to-do list, either, from the ‘hurry it up’ looks he was getting. Turning towards the wall in favor of watching those looks, he cupped the landline receiver close to his ear.

“This is Blake…”

A rustling met his ear, first, the sound of someone who had put their phone down while on hold. “Hey, John? It’s Tavian.” 

Blake nearly bit part of his tongue off trying not to grind his teeth into oblivion. Tavian Diggs was his case-worker, or at least, used to be. Now, he was still involved with that orphanage as well as others, and had been overseeing Blake’s connection with the kids there. He was the one that helped set up Blake’s visits and classes when the priest had had questions. They checked in with each other about once a month, but they’d already had their call this month. 

Swallowing past the lump rising in his throat, Blake croaked out, “Uh, hey, yeah. What’s up?” He cleared his throat, aiming the receiver away from his face for it, but he was sure it could still have been heard.

Tavian hardly let Blake’s words finish before he’d already started talking again. “Well, for one thing, Julian Gilbert has elected not to press charges for assault.”

Glancing beside and behind him quickly, Blake assured himself that no one could hear, but pressed the phone closer, even so. “Uhm… good?” When he’d left the boys’ home, stumbling out to the street in the cold, walking all the way back to the piers, he hadn’t even thought about legal consequences for the fight.

“What were you thinking?”

Letting out a breath, Blake sank into one of the three plastic chairs that sat against the wall in the office. The phone’s cord stretched a waist-height limbo line across the small room, but he didn’t care. “He was being an asshole,” he spoke quietly into the phone, despite knowing it sounded as petulant as it felt. “Look,” he started as Tavian tried to cut in, “he was insulting the kids, and me, and it got out of hand. I know it’s bad, but—”

“Yeah, it is,” Tavian cut him off more successfully. “You can’t go back so easily, this time, John.”

Blake raked a hand through his hair. “So… what, then?”

“Anger management classes is what.”

He felt his lips curl into a sneer. “Those don’t do shit,” he muttered, fully convinced of the fact from years of experience as a teenager. 

“It’s that or you can’t see the kids again.” While the words were matter-of-fact, the blow was still softened by Tavian’s lower tone.

Faced with an unpleasant ultimatum, Blake chose the former, agreeing to have Tavian contact a few folks and let Blake know where he’d need to be and when. Visits with the kids were still off, temporarily, until he’d fulfilled enough classes or progress to satisfy the agreement with Father Reilly. _Or with Gilbert_ , Blake thought bitterly, before biting that back and hanging up the phone. 

It took every scrap of self-control he had not to stalk back behind stage access and break something.

Mostly, he steered clear of everyone he could for the rest of the week. It stewed in his brain, the mistake of it, the indignation, and the injustice of nothing likely happening to Gilbert for all of his comments before he was punched. He still felt alive as he performed, let the encounter go out of his head, thought about nothing for a couple of hours each day but the eyes on him, the way in which the air felt when no one else was up in the scaffolding but him. He was still free for fleeting moments before reality met his feet along with the scrape of painted wood. 

That following Monday would have been an off-week anyway, and yet staying around the tents still smacked him like a hand to the face knowing that he couldn’t go see the boys even if he had the cash. Agitation swam in his nerves, and he thought briefly of joining one of the workout sessions some of the cast had to keep up their strength for lifts, but that meant a lot of time in close quarters with other people, and he rejected the idea. Something new, something different, still sounded the most appealing, though, and, regrettably, he had an idea for it fairly quickly.

While it wasn’t so much by design as by gradual preference, members of the performing cast bunked in a different tent than those who provided setup and behind the scenes efforts. There were rarely fights, but since crew members could, by nature of the job, be a less permanent addition to the show, a certain level of distance remained between the two groups. Rarely breaking that, himself, Blake felt as if he were sneaking around as he made his way to where he figured he could find their two newest additions.

He’d already had one meeting with his new anger management team—a therapist and a meditation class—and he wasn’t looking forward to the next one, that night. Maybe if he had something else going on back at the tents, he could think about that instead of ‘what bothers him’.

Not finding Bane or Barsad in their tent area probably shouldn’t have surprised him, but having _no_ luck locating them certainly did. Only when he’d given up, stood outside the crew tents with his hands on his hips, fingertips bitten into by a crisp breeze, did he hear his name from behind him. Behind and, notably, _above_ him. 

Turning fast, looking left and right before tilting his head upward, he was met by the visage of Barsad perched on one of the tent roof’s struts, a sturdy enough beam of wood, though surrounded by a sea of thick, smooth canvas that offered very little resistance should he misplace his footing. “How the fuck… you know what,” he stopped himself, a small shake to his head, “I don’t even want to know.” Except that he did, a bit.

With all of the grace of any performer Blake had ever witnessed, Barsad leapt up from his spot on the strut, tucked his feet, flipping twice before flaring his legs back out in a twist that landed not two feet from where Blake stood. Only practice with eyeballing trajectories, less so out of trust for Barsad’s aim, had him able to stand his ground for such a close call. 

“Were you looking for me?” the shorter man asked, not at all out of breath as his accent rolled over the words.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, then taking them right back out as his cropped nails scraped over seams and lint, Blake nodded. “Yeah, actually.” Taking a moment to get the right words, in which Barsad merely stood patiently, still, waiting for him, Blake let out a sigh and released possible embarrassment along with the ensuing request. “I wanted to see if you could like… teach me some new things,” brows opposite him shifted upward, “for the show, or fuck, just for myself, I don’t care.”

Despite curiosity clearly turning behind clear blue eyes, Barsad didn’t ask any questions. With merely a shrug, he nodded, and without asking or beckoning for Blake to follow, turned on his heel and started off towards the empty main tent. Following quickly, Blake shucked his coat and gloves once they were inside the wind-blocking structure, laying them over one of the front row seats of the audience as Barsad vaulted easily onto the stage ahead of him.

“Preferences?” he asked Blake, stretching his arms up over his head, hands grasped, his back bending side to side. 

“Uh,” Blake thought for a moment, but didn’t want to limit himself so quickly, “not really?”

“Then let us see what you can do, first.” Eyes on Blake, Barsad quickly crouched before launching himself backward, legs up over his head to land a walk-over on his toes, swiveling back to face the audience with a tilt of his head. 

_Easy enough_ , Blake thought, hauling himself onto the stage beside Barsad. He replicated the move, smooth on his feet and confident that it looked just as effortless as Barsad’s had. A nod of approval seemed to confirm that enough. That was followed by a single hand handstand, which Blake followed through on before Barsad was back on his feet. 

Several more simple moves later, Blake straightened to notice a form shifting in the shadows near one of the exit curtains. A large form. It didn’t take much deduction to figure out that Bane was watching them. Having paused to look, Blake caught Barsad’s attention as he finally turned back, and the other man just shrugged as if to convey that being watched like that was normal. Maybe it was, for him.

“Good,” was all the feedback Barsad offered before walking back from the edge of the stage. Blake watched him go, hands on his hips, curious enough to wait around for him to reappear. When he did, he was carting six practice balls. Carting, that is, in motion. The white balls were flying what seemed effortlessly from his hands into the air, back into his hands, over his head and behind, beneath a leg, over his bent-forward torso in an arc when he reached Blake and spun in a circle, capturing them all as they dropped delicately into his grasp. 

“…Shit,” Blake offered.

A smirk lit into Barsad’s features, though mostly hidden beneath his beard. It had been trimmed in the last few days, trading wild and wiry for neatly combed downward. The change was significant enough to slightly change the apparent shape of his face, slimming it down, drawing attention to the structure there. Blake only realized he’d been distracted into staring when one of the practice balls smacked him square in the chest.

“Hey!” He caught it as it lost forward momentum and began to be reclaimed by gravity. In short order, five more followed, only the first of which succeeding in making contact with his shirt as he grabbed them up much faster as they went. 

Slender fingers beckoned loosely at Blake. “And back,” Barsad ordered, the words short, quick, their vowels foreshortened over his tongue. 

Nodding his understanding, Blake took a moment to shift his feet, assessing options, before tucking three of the balls beneath one arm, sending the others into an easy arc, a beginner’s look, he knew well enough. Barsad, for his part, didn’t say a condescending word, didn’t twitch or react. Either way, Blake wasn’t done. With the first three in their own cycle, he added the fourth from nearly under his armpit, stepping back, forward, back again. The fifth went up easily enough as Blake sent a few aloft underhanded, below elbows, the last ball still stuck between his upper arm and his ribs. Locking eyes with Barsad for a moment, he felt that familiar spark, that thrill trilling up his spine, and he winked, cocking his tongue into the edge of his mouth as he added the sixth ball with a pair of pirouettes. As soon as he’d faced Barsad again, he sent the balls flying back his way, two at a time, which were caught just as easily as they had been flung.

Rather than tuck them away, Barsad kept each ball moving as it came his way, rotating in front of him in simple, alternating arcs. “Together?” he offered, one ruddy brow raised in Blake’s direction.

“Together?” Blake echoed, unsure at first. He understood quickly enough as Barsad kept his pattern, but sent one ball, then another, towards Blake, his chin rising quickly to jerk his head back. All six balls passed between them, then, a similar pattern as either of them had inevitably made vertically passing horizontally, stretched out. It continued even as Barsad began stepping to his left, matched by Blake to his own, until the two of them were rotating on the stage, a circle of a fancy game of catch. 

Barsad was the first to shake it up, passing underneath one leg, and then the other, Blake matching with similar motions to keep up. It was Blake, however, that spun first, a quick, frantic motion that stopped short just in time for the next sidestep, his throws not missing a beat, nor his catches. A near grin spread behind Barsad’s beard, and Blake watched, fascinated—impressed, if he’d admit—as Barsad threw his body into a handless cartwheel, not faltering a single pass.

Not to be outdone nor deterred, Blake waited for the right moment in the rhythm before jumping up in a manner of frog-legged leap, dropping easily into a full side split, and back onto his feet without losing more than a step or two of Barsad’s movements.

Before either of them could answer or up the ante again, a single set of hands applauding rang through the empty room. Blake’s first instinct would have been to suspect Bane, but it sounded less resonant than his large hands were likely capable of, and if that hadn’t been enough, Barsad had been startled, quickly holding onto all of the balls as their pass finished. Both of them turned to face the sea of audience seats to find its source.

“Bravissimi,” called out to them above the applause, repeated twice more for emphasis as the greying-haired woman made her way down the center aisle. Long before Blake could have made out her face, he knew from her brightly colored layers of clothing that it was their set choreographer, Somara. 

Eyes widening in panic, Blake stepped forward, unsure if he was grateful or chagrined that he wasn’t even holding the practice balls, anymore, but Barsad. “W-We were just messing around,” he called out as she approached, stopping just before the nearest set of rows. “I wasn’t trying to start anyth—”

Not giving him a chance to finish floundering, Somara raised her hands, bangles on her wrists jangling as she shook her hands at the two of them. “None of that,” she ordered, clasping her hands in front of her chest. “Who thought of this?”

Sweat had begun to trickle down Blake’s neck, behind his ears, and down his back. Without a word, he pointed a finger in Barsad’s direction, only to catch in his peripheral the same exact move being made at him, as well. He supposed that was only fair. 

“Alright,” Somara’s voice rose with the word, and Blake bit his lip, his nerves on fire with worry they’d both be out on their asses for insulting the order of things. Really, it would just be the cherry on top of a sundae’s worth of crap he’d been dealing with lately. “Then the both of you are in charge of managing an extra bit for the next week, and we’ll see how it goes, from there.” Without a word at Blake’s dumbfounded face, or at Barsad’s silent form atop the stage, Somara turned and waltzed her way out of the aisle, seeming to be quite pleased with herself.

A deep chuckle resounded from off stage right, and Blake aimed an accusing glare in Bane’s direction. “She… she _never_ does that,” he informed him, trying to summon as much weight into the words as he felt.

"Congratulations, then." 

"No, yeah,” Blake stammered, “like... I mean, _thanks_ , but..."

"We have work to do," Barsad was already hopping off the stage and heading for a side exit in front of the audience, leading down below the main stage and into a tunnel of small rooms. Blake stared after Somara’s absent form for a second before collecting himself, swearing, and bolting down after Barsad. 

**_______________________________  
  
**

They started small, just a brief addition to Blake’s existing bit in the show. During the finale of his involvement in the story of the show, Barsad came out and ‘battled’ him with brighter, heavier balls than the ones they’d practiced with. Blake’s usual cheers were louder, more engaged at the ante being upped. Back and forth, across more distance, with a twist and turn thrown in for good measure. He relished the surprised ‘ooh!’s when either of them had to catch up with a high-thrown pass, or a flip that looked as though they’d never be able to keep going past. They spent the next two weeks at the same, small adjustments with big payoffs in the audience.

For their third week, Barsad had new ideas. Blake had been up early that Tuesday morning, the sun barely making an appearance past the towering buildings of downtown. Outside the tents at that hour was a quiet space, peaceful, even so close to the ground. The approach from behind him was just as quiet, and if he hadn’t already gotten used to the ways in which Barsad sneaked around the tents, he might have missed him. Instead he turned, nodding his greeting as his breath clouded the early morning air.

“How ready are you?”

Blinking, Blake bit back a yawn. “Uh… for what, exactly?”

“New things.”

A second later, Blake was on his feet. 

Despite the early hour, the corner of the break room they’d used for brainstorming was already set up with a white board. A few things were scribbled at the top, and after squinting for several moments, Blake realized with a start that they weren’t just in strange handwriting, but instead that they weren’t in English at all. 

“What’s it say?” he pointed at the board before tugging over a rolling stool to take up residence to listen.

The words out of Barsad’s mouth, in answer, were also decidedly not in English. When Blake only pursed his lips, Barsad shrugged. “It does not work in English,” he defended. 

“Then we might have a problem.”

Glancing to the board and back to Blake, Barsad grabbed up a marker, twirling it in his fingers and clearly already having thought of that. “I’ll make pictures.”

Skeptical, Blake held back as Barsad began illustrating whatever it was that he’d written across the top. He described it as he went, only he was speaking whatever he’d started with, and Blake had to pay extra close attention to the pictures, because that was all he could actually understand. Having only been haphazardly dressed for the day, with no commitments, he found himself soon distracted by his unlaced boots. Nodding along with Barsad’s illustrations—the two of them, a suspended rope, dots to indicate the objects they would trade back and forth—he leaned down to lace and tie up the strings, giving little thought to the fact that Barsad was still speaking.

In his mind, he was still paying attention; after all, he _was_ listening. It only took a minute, maybe two, to finish fiddling with the shoes, the laces and the places where they were peeling and stripping of stitches, and he figured he couldn’t have missed much. Looking back up, however, he was startled to find the board no longer contained the suspension, nor the dots, but flames ringing the sides of the line that, at least before, had been indicating the edge of the stage. Figures meant to be the two of them were nowhere to be seen, and Blake sat there staring for several moments before he spoke to stop Barsad.

“Wait, wait… what?” he asked sharply, waving a hand to be sure to get his attention.

“What do you mean ‘what’?” Barsad switched to English, though Blake noted that his words were much more heavily accented in the moment. 

“THAT,” Blake gestured with both hands to the board, hoping his confusion was evident enough on his face.

Brows narrowed, tilting, Barsad slowly enunciated whatever it is he’d been saying while Blake had been bent over with his boots, which did nothing at all to help the situation. Back to English again, Barsad pointed with the open marker tip towards each component of the board. “The fire consumes, and we drop,” was all the explanation he offered, and in a tone that clearly indicated to Blake that he should have already known what was going on.

“How did you get _there_ from a simple suspension rig?” The pitch of Blake’s voice rose as the sentence wore on, his incredulity bared and sharply sent Barsad’s way. Behind him, always behind him, he heard Bane chuckling at the exchange.

“Were you not watching the progression?” Barsad accused, clearly not having turned around during his storyboard shifts.

An amused lilt in the timbre of his tone, Bane offered, “He looked away to re-tie his boots.”

Barsad blinked at him silently before turning to Blake again. “Did your brain forget you cannot speak Russian, for a minute?” There was laughter edging behind the question, nearly visible in the man’s neck as he kept his face calm.

“…So maybe it did,” Blake mock-defended, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your pictures are still confusing!” 

“They would not be, had you paid attention.”

At that assumption by Barsad, Blake swiveled in his spot on the stool, turning to face Bane more fully. “You were watching?” A nod affirmed. “Alright, you saw all of the pictures, and I know you guys speak the same language, so tell me: did it all make sense, even if I had been watching?”

Pausing as if in thought, Bane was silent at first, peering at the white board, one hand poised just-so against his wide chin. “Truly,” he settled, “it is impossible to tell.”

Blake merely held his forehead in one hand, admitting defeat, even as Barsad snickered and began erasing his work to re-imagine it again.

The second time through, Blake stood closer to the board, watching with rapt attention and forcing distractions out of present thought. Bane also provided a few key translations when Barsad’s words didn’t seem satisfactory to himself, and his pictures not enough for Blake to gather his intent. Coupled with a bit of post-presentation discussion, they ended up with a fairly solid plan for a new act addition that would not only give them something fun to practice, but show off a bit more skill on both their sides, adding to the satisfaction.

Convincing Somara took some work, given the complexity of the ideas even after they’d worked out most of the kinks on their own. Pyrotechnics were already involved in other areas of the show, so the ‘danger’ aspect wasn’t something they were particularly worried about, nor was she. The trickiest bit would be working out the rigging and its timing with the rest of the crew, to integrate it into the existing show set. That, however, would fall predominantly on Bane and Barsad’s shoulders. Blake had done most of the talking with Somara, so it was a fair enough trade off.

Most of Barsad’s ideas were at least passingly familiar to Blake, in practice—he had worked with suspension, with rings and hoops, with secured staffs and odd-shaped objects for juggling—just not all together and mix-and-matched. They couldn’t possibly get it ready for that week’s show, and while they probably could have run it through for the next, Blake wasn’t confident in his part. No amount of encouragement from Bane, side stage, was enough to convince him until the third set of practice days.

“What still vexes you?” the larger man asked him, approaching after Blake stopped their run-through in frustration. Again. “You have performed this for me many times, now.”

Combing both sets of fingers back through sweat-dampened hair, Blake tilted his head back, squinting against the stage lights that were too bright despite being only about halfway on. “Yeah, I know, but I feel like I’m only just barely making it.” Stepping towards the stage’s rounded edge, he plucked up a half-empty water bottle, taking a pair of measured swallows. Too little hydration and he’d risk getting light headed, too much fluid in his stomach and he’d run between sluggishness and nausea. 

Taking the bottle from his grasp before Blake noticed the offending hand approach, Barsad tilted its flow into his mouth before handing it back to a glaring Blake. “Perhaps you need the motivation of an audience.”

“Bane’s been here. Hell, Somara was here, yesterday, too.” It hadn’t just been practice, since that felt every bit like a performance, anyway. Or, worse, an audition.

But Barsad shook his head. “No, that is not what I meant.” When Blake gestured impatiently for him to explain, he continued, “You need the fear.”

“I’m not afraid of an audience of people,” he deadpanned, a scoff halfway out of his throat.

Starting to step backward towards their starting positions, Barsad gave a toss of his shoulders. “Perhaps not, but there is a certain fear in live performance,” pausing a moment, he looked away, a motion Blake had learned meant he was searching for the best English words, “in… exposing oneself.” Blake having followed him, reluctantly, back to their marks, Barsad tapped a pair of fingertips against Blake’s chest. “There is intimacy to it.”

The scoff traveled the rest of the way out. “How’m I supposed to figure out if I’m ready for _that_?”

A tooth-showing smile spread across Barsad’s face, and he hoisted himself onto one of the twin stationary staffs fit into center stage. Each was equipped with a handhold strap near the top, and a few notches for their feet that were nearly impossible for the audience to see. “You cannot. Only doing it will tell you.”

_Great_ , Blake thought to himself, yet he hauled his body up the staff, anyway, and gave himself to the freedom of practice.

**_______________________________  
  
**

Two weeks of the same, over a month since he’d seen the boys at the orphanage. Blake had seen more classes and group-talk sessions than he ever wanted to again, and he wasn’t even done with the program he’d had to sign off on. While he couldn’t say it was helping, he at least had the satisfaction of knowing that the more visits he made there, the closer he was to getting back to his normal routine. Of course, by the time he _did_ get back to the boys’ home, Gilbert would still be there, and he would have to deal with that, somehow.

Barsad had taken a break, that morning, leaving Blake to continue to work on his staff mounting. They still weren’t totally set on which choreography they would work with, when they finally added their act to the show, but for now, the staffs required the most practice. It was down to those or a bit with harnesses, but Blake had experience with being hoisted, and Barsad hadn’t seemed fazed at all by the idea, and so staffs. Hanging halfway off of his staff, a yard off the ground and only one set of limbs secure, he heard his name called in the supposedly empty audience space.

Staying secured, he turned, rotating on the straps, and searched the seats. “…Hello?”

Footsteps foreshadowed the figure that slowly approached, house lights doused since they had only needed the stage to be lit. It was a show day, but early enough that even the crew didn’t need to be in their space just yet. When they finally got closer, Blake stared in surprise, unsure he was actually seeing straight.

“…Khalil?”

A half-committal wave accompanied the wide-eyed look on the boy’s face. “I-I watched you… for a while,” he started, hands shoving self-consciously into his pants pockets. “You a-and that other guy. You were _awesome_.” The words rushed over themselves, and Khalil came right up to the edge of the stage, craning his neck to look up at Blake. “This is what you do every day?”

Offering the kid a smile, Blake nodded at first, then cleared his throat. “Well, this stuff is new. But yeah, this is where I work.” Dropping down to sit on the stage’s edge before sliding off and next to Khalil, Blake drew the boy into a short but firm hug. “What are you doing here, Khalil? Who brought you?”

Khalil held on longer than Blake expected, and seemed reluctant to let go, even then. “I’m here to see you,” came out steady, “and uh,” less so, “no one. Just me.”

Warning bells went off in Blake’s mind, and he pulled back to more fully scrutinize the face before him. It was then that he noticed the bag dropped back up the aisle. A full duffle, big enough, he knew, though small in size, to contain every one of the kid’s belongings. 

The angle of his gaze was followed, and Khalil held up his hands to stop Blake from starting to speak again. "Look, before you yell at me, let me explain." Biting his tongue hard between four sets of molars, Blake nodded, and listened as Khalil told his story. After Blake had left--after he'd officially been banned from the orphanage for a while--Gilbert had been singing his criticisms immediately, not stopping even when a number of the boys tried defending Blake in small ways. According to Khalil, it had risen to toxic levels, and he'd finally had it out with Gilbert over that, over his studies, over his dreams and aspirations, all of it. "It wasn't physical," he assured Blake when he rested his head in one palm, "but it was a screaming match, I guess, and I don't want to be there, anymore."

Having assumed Khalil was looking to stay with Blake for maybe the weekend, his head rose up sharply. "Khalil, you can't just run away..."

"I'm almost seventeen... they don't really call that running away, they call that self-emancipation."

"No, no they don't."

A wild shrug flew into Khalil's shoulders and out through his arms. "I thought you'd be happy to see me!" It was a frustrated complaint, but there was hurt tinging his tone behind it. 

Using the time to take several deep and calming breaths, Blake stepped over to pluck up the duffle bag from the aisle. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't very heavy at all. "I am," he reassured, making sure his voice was even, "I am, just... Come here." 

Taking the kid's arm in a light grip, he led him back behind the stage, to the dressing room. Barsad was already there, but he merely glanced over from the corner chairs when Blake and Khalil entered. 

Khalil, however, was not so passive. “You!” he pointed at Barsad, who merely raised his brows. “You were on stage, too! You were amazing!”

Barsad offered a swirl of a bow as he sat, even with his cell phone in his hand. 

“Listen,” Khalil continued, turning his attention back to Blake, “I could work with you, you know I could. I can do a lot of what you do, and you can get me in!”

By that point, Barsad had put his phone away, and he was just quietly watching. Blake, however, was paying no attention to him. “I get it,” he began, “it looks fun from the audience,” he had to hold up his hands to stop Khalil from interrupting, and sped into the next, “it’s a lot of work, and it’s all you can do when you do it. You need to finish school, it’s too early to run off here, and you can still get support from the home for another year and a half!”

“You’re being a hypocrite!” A slender, deep-toned finger jabbed into the front of Blake’s shoulder. “You’re not even using your education here, so clearly it doesn’t even matter if I get it!”

“Yes I do!” His voice was louder than he’d wanted, and he softened it. “It doesn’t directly translate, all the time, but I use it in other ways, the experience of it. Staying through school helped prepare me to finish things, to have completed it, it gave me a foundation and yeah, I need that diploma if I ever can’t stay with the troupe, like if I get hurt. It’s the same with anything else like sports, and I know you know that.” “Look,” Blake started over, pinching the bridge of his nose. It was all he could to do direct his feet _not_ to start pacing across the short space in front of Khalil. “I’m not saying ‘don’t do this for a living’.”

“Good,” Khalil cut in, his tone flat, pointed, “because you’ve pretty much been telling me I _should_ for the last couple of years.”

Blake sighed. “You _could_ , is what I said, and I’m still saying it.” The boy nodded, satisfied, and Blake continued. “I’m just _also_ saying that you should _wait_.”

An elongated, frustrated sound emitted from Khalil’s throat, all ‘A’s and ‘R’s. “Wait for what?” he demanded, slapping the back of one hand onto the other’s palm. “An accident in the meantime? Losing practice? Getting caught in someone else’s violence somewhere in this shithole city?”

“Exactly,” Blake interrupted, pointing towards the boy. “Exactly what I’m talking about—you getting hurt.”

“So you see my point!”

“No,” he worked to keep his voice measured, to not yell again. “I’m talking about you getting injured _here_.” Pointing past Khalil’s face, close enough to startle him out of another round of arguing, Blake indicated the scaffolding that could be seen through the gap in the canvas behind him. “Look back out there,” he directed. “You see all of that? That’s dangerous shit, even for everyone who’s been practicing and doing it for years. What if you fell? What if something happened and you broke your shit out there, and couldn’t do it anymore? What’re you going to have to help you get some other kind of job without an _education to back it up_?”

“I never finished,” came from behind Blake, and he only then remembered that Barsad had been sitting in the corner of the room the entire time, merely watching and listening, and apparently also waiting for the right time to chime in. 

Turning slowly, Blake glared back at Barsad, his teeth ground down tightly. “This isn’t about you.”

“I wanna hear it,” Khalil argued, lifting his chin towards the other side of the room. “Let him talk.”

“You don’t—”

Barsad didn’t wait for more encouragement, cutting Blake off by simply speaking past him to Khalil. “I did not finish my schooling,” he clarified. “Here, you would say it was…” he paused only to think of the equivalent, it seemed, “middle school.” Shrugging, he finally stood. “I did not need more school to tell me how to work, and so I worked.”

Khalil held out both hands towards Barsad as if to offer his example to Blake. “Looks like it works.”

Rubbing thumb and forefinger at his temples, Blake felt his jaw tighten again. “It’s not the same.”

“How long you been doing it?” Khalil aimed at Barsad. “This stuff, circus stuff.”

Frowning in thought, Barsad’s eyes rolled to the ceiling for a moment or two. “Since very young. Perhaps… fifteen?” Khalil turned to Blake with an all too satisfied look on his face.

“He grew up in RUSSIA!” Blake nearly shouted the words, demanding the difference matter to someone else besides just himself, hands thrown up in the air.

“Belarus.”

Blake rolled his eyes. “Whatever! My point is that it’s not the same. People have their own paths, and this city isn’t Russia, or Belarus, or anywhere else. It’s _here_ , and it’s damned near impossible to find good work if you don’t have a skill and you don’t have a goddamned high school diploma.”

“Wouldn’t Belarus’ve been part of Russia, anyway, when you were a kid?” Khalil watched Barsad as if Blake hadn’t spoken.

“Byelorussia,” Barsad nodded, then shrugged. “It was always itself.” He turned to Blake, smacking lightly at his arm. “He knows history on my country,” he led, “he needs no more education.” A grin that didn’t quite make it to his lips danced in his eyes, and Blake wanted nothing more than to punch him in that moment. 

“That’s NOT—” For the third time in as many minutes, Blake was cut off.

Side canvas drawn back in the doorway behind Barsad, Nidhi stepped through with a somewhat tired and impatient countenance. “What exactly is all of the yelling?” she asked, taking in the scene. Bane had come in from the other side, at some point, but Blake couldn’t recall when exactly he’d appeared there beside the chairs in which Barsad had been sitting. Looking from one man to the next, Nidhi’s eyes fell on Khalil, and she gestured his way. “Who’s the kid? You all finally figure out a way to spawn without women? It clearly worked.”

“Ha-ha,” Blake over-enunciated.

But Khalil inclined his head her way, taking a step back from Blake and Barsad. “Sorry, ma’am,” he politely apologized.

“This is Khalil… he’s one of the kids I work with. He’s got a lot of talent, and he’s going to _finish his_ _schooling_ so he has a better foundation to do something about it.”

Khalil was visibly displeased with Blake’s description of the situation, and passed in front of him, blocking Nidhi’s view. “I’m gonna be in the circus,” he declared, his chest puffed outward.

It was almost childish, the display, and yet no laughter came from Nidhi. Instead, she looked to each of the men’s faces in the room, finding whatever confirmation she’d needed there, and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Stepping forward, reaching out a hand towards Khalil, she beckoned. “Walk with me?”

Her movement left Blake, Barsad, and Bane completely out of engagement. Seeming almost enthralled by the offer, Khalil held out his arm for Nidhi’s hand, and she guided the two of them out of the room, out through the curtains and into the sea of empty audience seats. A look directed back their way indicated exactly what she thought of them even attempting to follow her in that moment. So they hung back, by the doorway, regrettably too far away from where the pair settled to hear the exact words being exchanged. The only thing Blake could make out was Nidhi’s soft tone, the way her inflection ricocheted off of the canvas walls. 

At one point, Nidhi laid her arm across the back of Khalil’s seat, and Blake thought he saw her hand on his shoulder. She tilted her head, Khalil nodded his, and turned to wrap his arms around her in a firm hug. They stayed like that for several moments, Nidhi’s hand gently rubbing between the boy’s shoulder blades in a comforting gesture. After, they stood, she touched his cheek with her hand, and he turned to head out of the tent through the center aisle, fully away from where they’d entered and where he’d originally aimed his attentions. 

With Nidhi making her way back towards them, all three men backed away from the canvas opening as if they hadn’t been watching the whole exchange, and attempted to find something that made them _look_ like they hadn’t been trying to eavesdrop. That is, at least Blake and Barsad attempted that. Bane, on the other hand, merely stood back and opened the canvas further for Nidhi’s easy entry.

“How did it go?” Bane asked, clearly uninterested in hiding his curiosity or his spying. 

Crossing the draping halves of her tunic over her middle and crossing her arms on top, Nidhi gave an at-first noncommittal shrug. It had its likely desired effect of drawing Blake and Barsad’s attentions more obviously toward her. “He’s going home,” she announced, as if she might well have been announcing that it was beginning to rain outside, or that dinner was ready.

“What?” Blake was the first to find words, immediately following them with a quick stalk across the short floor, ready to go off to find Khalil without any more conversation. A nimble, strong hand caught his upper arm, and he turned to face Nidhi. “I need to go after him.”

Her expression was patient, but Blake knew well enough the patronizing edge it contained. “He got himself here without your help,” she reminded him, “he can get home again, the same.” Blake hardly made it halfway through another protest before Nidhi was shaking her head and interrupting. “I _do_ understand. So will you, if you listen before doing something rash.”

Fingers flexing at his sides, Blake forced himself to inhale slowly, letting it out in a narrow, smooth stream from his mouth. Khalil had left his bag, for one thing, and Blake didn’t want their last words for who knew how long to have been in an argument. “Alright. Listen to what?”

“He _will_ be going home,” she self-corrected, without sounding as if she’d said anything wrong in the first place, “after tonight’s show.”

Grabbing up Khalil’s bag, Blake shook his head. “He needs to go back as soon as possible, before they come looking for him.”

“He is already here,” Bane pointed out, “and show time is not so long from now. He might as well see what he wishes to join.” Nidhi gestured her agreement, and Barsad had already lost interest in the conversation. “Later, Barsad and I can escort him home—” his turn to motion for pause from the others, “—Blake is unable to visit the orphanage, at this time, and I am certain he would feel better if the boy did not travel alone, and he should be on his way tonight, so that no authorities become involved.” 

To his side, Barsad seemed to twitch at the mention of police, but Blake was too preoccupied with the issue at hand to be overly curious. Nidhi had already reached forward to gently pluck the bag from Blake’s hands. 

“Khalil will be fine,” she assured, in far more than reference just to the bus trip back up town. “He is a bright boy, and he understands more things of the world than you may give him credit for.” Leaning in, she pressed a friendly kiss to Blake’s cheek, patting it afterward. “Let him watch the show, cheer for you, and go home knowing he at least connected with this world in some satisfying way, hmm?”

Her word was final, as Blake had no more arguments to make. The whole of them had teamed up against him, and the evening went as they’d arranged. Khalil got a look at Blake’s regular position, and was able to meet most of the players after the show as they fawned over him no doubt at Nidhi’s nudging. With prompting from several of Blake’s cast mates, Khalil was encouraged on stage to show some of what he’d been practicing lately, earning his own private applause, and lighting up like Blake had never seen him before. Though he still stood his ground on the debate, he knew that Khalil would find his way to a stage somewhere, somehow, when it was right for him. 

**_______________________________**   
  


How had he let Bane convince him to add their act to the live show that next week? Even standing atop the light rig scaffolding, watching the seats begin to fill three stories below him, a besparkled and form-fitting leotard the only thing between him and open air, Blake was still asking himself that question. He fully remembered the conversation, the late afternoon they’d had it. A full run through had been completed by all players, and they had a small bit of time for dinner before shoring up their individual acts that night. Stomach in knots, Blake had opted for pacing an empty access hallway while most of his cast mates were eating.

“You need food to keep your strength,” had come from behind him, Bane’s deep voice more rumbling the words than enunciating them. They had been clear all the same, and punctuated by a plate of sampled gatherings from their cafeteria offered towards him.

Not having paused his motion between the hallway’s walls, Blake had eyed the plate with suspicion. “I also need to keep everything already in my stomach, if I want to make it through the day,” he’d pointed out.

Bane’s wide hand had reached out to lightly lay over Blake’s shoulder, effectively stopping his motion even though the man hadn’t even grasped his fingers. Just the weight of the addition had disrupted the perpetual motion he’d built up. With the plate held out in front of Blake’s chest, Bane had given a pat to his shoulder. “You have what you need, already.”

Taking the plate, Blake had nodded his thanks despite not having been truly interested in putting food in his stomach. “Yeah,” he’d flatly agreed, “with you shoving food in my face, I have everything I need, huh.”

“That is not what I mean.”

Blake had taken a few bites of meat and vegetable casserole—a staple around the tents, just dependent on access to meats—and leaned against one of the wall’s struts. “You gonna keep being cryptic, or you wanna explain?” The casserole had been delicious, and though he wouldn’t have admitted it aloud, he had been grateful Bane had brought it and encouraged the decision to eat.

“The show.” As usual, Bane had been just as economic with words as ever, in direct contrast to the way in which Blake knew he often rambled.

Though Blake had stared at him for a second, spoon in his mouth, he’d put it together fast enough. “I have everything I need for the show?” A nod from a big bald head had followed. “Yeah, yeah.” Another spoonful.

“I am serious.”

“Yeah, I’m aware.”

Bane had enumerated his points on lifted fingers. “You have your talent, and Barsad’s. You have your practice, your skill and its weight. You have Somara’s approval and appreciation, and the crew’s support.” Closing his fingers, Bane had bumped his fist lightly against the center of Blake’s chest. “You have what you need—take the leap.”

The leap, of course, was rather literal, as it turned out. Blake had gotten caught up with Bane’s faith in his abilities, in Barsad’s practice and their combined ideas, and had let himself get swept away in it all. A few days later, Khalil in attendance below where he stood atop the scaffolding rigs, he got swept away by a lead line that dropped him in a controlled, delicate arc down to the stage floor. Alighting on his feet, he was met by Barsad’s similarly styled arrival, just a few feet away. 

A bearded face nodded in his direction, and Blake felt a drop in his stomach bigger and deeper than the change in gravity from standing on rigging to plummeting to stage. Rather than performing to the anticipated laughter and direct engagement of the crowded seats, he and Barsad were alone, for the moment, on the round edged stage, with a hush having fallen over the room as the crew switched to their elected music tracks.

It began with the two men circling one another, steps light, measured, crafted to look tense and yet holding very little actual tension. While there was still some buoyancy left in their harness lead lines, their full weight was still against the stage floor. Beats in the music accompanied their movements as they approached one another in a tightening spiral, a dance that left the audience out of its loop as they stared each other down, steadily. They paused only when within reach, the music slowing, until, along with a sharp, metallic tone, they suddenly reached forward to grasp one another’s outstretched arms, locked in a strong grip. Gasps from the seats were quiet, but Blake still bit back the same smirk he could see in Barsad’s eyes.

In the length of a single breath, both Blake and Barsad ducked beneath their arms’ hold, feet up and kicking against one another’s in the same moment they let go with their hands, propelling them away from where they’d squared off. As they dove off, a small panel opened up in the floor, and like a fountain spring, a series of balls flew up from the stage between them. Not a one hit the floor again, as Blake turned to grab the first four, Barsad the last, each rolling a tuck to come back to standing, back to back, sending their four balls juggling in the air in front of them. Already, the pleased applause warmed against Blake’s nerves.

Their chosen music took a turn, then, punctuated by more organic backbeats, bongos and bamboo, active as they stepped away from one another. While they were in sync to start, they each approached the stage’s edge to ‘wow’ the audience with their own individual tricks and maneuvers. Early on, they’d decided that hamming it up for the front row seats would set a good tone, and so they broke stride here and there to hold a ball beneath their chin, or against their ear, or atop their head—just for a moment-just enough to pause and break expectations. It worked beautifully on Blake’s side, and he could hear clearly enough that Barsad was doing well.

Despite having gotten their audience’s attentions, the two of them weren’t nearly done. With a glance back over their shoulders at each other, and a nod, not having dropped a ball or stopped their arcing patterns that had now synced back up, they took a step back. That was the signal, and Blake felt the unmistakable pull of his harness as the soles of his shoes left the stage floor. Seats and people shrank down below him as he and Barsad were pulled from their places, never losing a moment of coordination as the crowd beneath their juggling hands clapped and reacted with surprise. For a moment, they were merely floating aloft, nothing having changed except the height at which they were performing the simple trick. 

That changed. Coinciding with another shift in their music, the intensity rising, their lead lines were shifted along their tracks, and both men were turned, tilted, and slid to face one another. Once again, they were approximately ten feet apart, just this time thirty feet in the air. Unable to help the grin creasing into his face, the adrenaline steadily replacing nerves and uncertainties that had been plaguing his limbs, Blake gave Barsad a chin-rising nod, and the climax of their act began. Across the space between them, up above the stage floor, they passed their targets back and forth, weaving an intricate pattern of white circles that stood out starkly from the mostly dimmed performance space. Overhead lights illuminated their forms and the bright paint on the balls kept them in view as they flew between their hands.

Nearly stealing his breath, Blake followed Barsad’s cue this time as he tightened his core, raising his legs behind him and flattening out his body to be nearly horizontal as they remained suspended. No pauses, no drops, no slowing down. Slowly, just slowly enough to keep them from outrunning their own targets, the men’s leads were sent on a rotation that spun them in a circle above the stage floor. Music running faster, they increased their pace, tracked closer together, closer still, until they righted vertical once more, and sped through their pattern not a yard from one another’s fingertips. 

Though he was watching the balls, eyes on the targets, Blake still caught Barsad looking at him, caught the spark in his eyes as they approached the end of their planned run. It came almost too soon, the signal in the music that let them know that the panel far below them had opened back up beneath their feet, stealthily, where the audience wouldn’t see it unless they were staring at the floor instead of the action. A slow nod from Barsad, and one by one, each of the white balls they’d been passing were dropped just-so, directly between them. At the first, an audible gasp ran through the crowd, as if they’d made a mistake, an almost disappointed sound. When the next seven descended with precision, however, the energy below them changed, especially as all of the balls neatly flew through the small opening and down out of sight below the stage. 

Next, it was their turn. Barely a beat in between the last target’s trail, with Blake’s stomach already rising in anticipation as he willed it to calm, slack overcame their lead lines and both he and Barsad plummeted towards the stage at free-fall speed. Another gasp resounded even as their tension returned just in time to soften the impact, each of them taking the momentum to tumble forward, popping up at the very rounded edge of the stage to hold their arms aloft in a finishing display. 

Heart pounding in his ears, Blake felt his cheeks straining against the grin that stretched them. They’d done it, no mistakes, no falls, and there he was, holding major attention on stage alongside another, as if he belonged there. Glancing over at Barsad as he lowered his arms to give a short bow, he imagined he could see pride beneath the self-pleased sparkle. 

Behind the curtains and canvas, crowd left behind and the rest of the show going on without them, Blake was absolutely certain of the proud clasp to his shoulder he received from Bane. From Khalil, who had had a killer vantage point from side-stage, Blake received a dozen questions all balled up in one breath, which he planned to answer—as long as the kid had finished his homework.


End file.
